A collection of newsworthy information as reported from newspapers, magazines, and blogs.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Is Newt Gingrich a Christian Terrorist?

By definition a terrorist is 1. a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism. 2. a person who terrorizes or frightens others.

Notice Gingrich comments:

1. Gingrich said, “this is not a war on terrorism ... this is a struggle with radical Islamists.” The problem, he said, is that too many leaders are “sleepwalking” and won’t face the threat. Ask yourself: If you wanted to infiltrate a country, wouldn’t a grand strategy be to rapidly build mosques from Ground Zero in New York, to Temecula, Calif., and establish beachheads so fanatics could plan and advance their strategies under the cover of religious freedom and that great American virtue known as “tolerance,” which is being used against us? The best people to consult on such matters are those with the life experiences and knowledge to credibly comment on the subject. After all, we can’t expect those who wish to destroy us to tell the truth, can we? Except that they do tell it by their words and deeds throughout much of the world. The problem isn’t that they’re not telling. The problem is that too many are imprisoned in denial.

2. In a radio interview, he said he wants the national government to step in and stop the developers from building the Islamic community center by whatever means necessary. "I think the Congress has the ability to declare the area a national battlefield memorial because I think we should think of the World Trade Center as a battlefield site; this is a war," he said, apparently thinking that if Ground Zero was a national park, Park51 would be restricted from building near it. And if that fails, he said, the state government should step in and use its considerable power to stymie the development. Funny, isn't it, how the anti-government Gingrich wants the government to step in and tell a private religious organization what to do? I suppose it's okay for the government to be heavy-handedly oppressive when it comes to Muslims but not when it comes to Christians or the "free" market. Gingrich certainly wouldn't want the government interfering in his world, telling him what to do, and yet government control is a fine weapon to wield against undesirables.

I am tempted to say that Gingrich and those with him on this issue are with the terrorists -- and I will say that, because they are. Gingrich passes himself off as an intellectual, but he's really just a partisan thug who's read a few books and can speak coherently. He basks in bigotry and ignorance on this issue, as on so many others, and, no, Americans should not stand for it.

3. America is facing a mortal threat....If we don't act now, our great nation will no longer exist. What is putting America as we know it in such peril? The Secular-Socialist Machine—a corrupt bureaucracy which uses manipulation, bribery, and dishonesty to steamroll the will of the people and destroy America's core values. To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine by Newt Gingrich - Gingrich has been an outspoken critic of Barack Obama, whom he described as “the most radical president in American history.” Gingrich has argued that it is necessary to “save America” and stop Obama's "secular socialist machine.” He has characterized Obama's universal health care reform as leading America towards authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and the end of democracy.
Last year, the President proved they had a machine. When I used the term "secular socialist machine," I mean that. And he proved they had a machine when they got $787 billion with no elected Member having read the bill. Now, "no taxation without representation," a term Obama might remember from history, which was used by the Americans to explain why the British monarchy was unacceptable, actually means that representation has to know what they are taking your money for. So, if you have spending with no representative knowing what it is, you don't have representative self-government. You have a machine. And that was the first signal that this is very different. This is the most radical administration in American history. And I began to realize after a year of watching them that if you think about the group that meets together in the White House, their experience is the machine politics of Chicago, the corruption of Springfield, and the radicalism of Alinsky. And it comes together in a format and then they meet with their two colleagues, Pelosi and Reid, and you have a perfect unrepresentative left-wing machine dedicated to a secular socialist future.

4. Gingrich attempted to break down Obama's political behavior by pointing to a recent article published in Forbes magazine. "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?" Gingrich asked. "That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior." He later tweeted out the link again and asked his followers to tell him what they thought about the piece's conclusion. Forbes article: How Obama Thinks . The Columbia Journalism Review called D'Souza's article "the worst kind of smear journalism – a singularly disgusting work." When an otherwise respected publication such as Forbes allows an otherwise respected author like D’Souza to pile so many innuendoes and half-truths into a cover story, it says either one or two things. It says that this magazine believes a black president doesn’t merit the same respect as others when it comes to presenting the truth, or that the public is more inclined to succumb to fears and stereotypes about Obama – so much so that when it comes to him, they don’t have to let the truth get in the way of telling a story. Read more.

5. "I think the American people are prepared to say don't burn the Koran just as they wouldn't want to burn the bible or any other religious document," Gingrich said on ABC News's "Good Morning America." "But they are also prepared to say [to Obama] 'Why don't you be pretty blunt, be at least as blunt with Imam Rauf as you are with the pastor in Florida and tell him don't do it.'"

"As Americans we are not — and never will be — at war with Islam," the president said. "It was not a religion that attacked us that September day — it was al-Qaida, a sorry band of men which perverts religion." "The highest honor we can pay those we lost, indeed our greatest weapon in this ongoing war, is to do what our adversaries fear the most," the president said. "To stay true to who we are, as Americans; to renew our sense of common purpose; to say that we define the character of our country, and we will not let the acts of some small band of murderers who slaughter the innocent and cower in caves distort who we are."

Bloomberg said "Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here. This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan. Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies' hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes, as important a test. And it is critically important that we get it right."

Taliban officials say they’re looking forward to a new wave of terrorist trainees from the West like this year’s Times Square car bomber. “I expect we will soon be receiving more American Muslims like Faisal Shahzad who are looking for help in how to express their rage,” says a Taliban official who was a senior minister when the group ruled Afghanistan and who remains active in the insurgency. As an indication of the anger that is growing among some Muslims in the West, this official, who requested anonymity for security reasons, mentions the arrest of three Canadian Muslims in Ontario last week on charges of plotting to build and detonate improvised explosive devices. (A fourth individual was arrested in Ottawa last Friday in connection with the case.) The Ground Zero furor will likely add to that anger. “The more mosques you stop, the more jihadis we will get,” Zabihullah predicts.

Newt, you get sleazier with age. You said President Obama is dishonest? The word “dishonest” should never cross the lips on your well-fed face! Your outrageous, reprehensible comments show how desperate, dishonest and ...

The cartoonish demonization of our Enemy is accomplished by mindlessly screaming inflammatory, manipulated labels at them --"Terrorists!" -- designed to rob them of their Humanness, obliterate nuances among them, and convert them into some incomprehensible Other. That's how we justify to ourselves what we do to them. But the reality is much more complex than that. As even American military leaders acknowledge, "the Taliban" is composed of many diverse factions with different motivations, including a desire to expel foreign armies (i.e., us) from their country. Many of their leaders are malicious extremists and monsters who advocate heinous policies and engage in incomprehensibly vile acts, while many of their supporters are motivated by innocuous or even reasonable fears and objectives which are easily exploited. In other words, they are quite similar in composition and drives to most other political factions which end up endorsing and perpetrating heinous acts, even when those factions are American.

The insistence that this comparison between Us and Them is inherently invalid and even "obscene" lies at the heart of so much mischief -- it's the linchpin of exceptionalism and jingoism -- and it's very disappointing to see this claim being so casually invoked in reaction to this book. The nature of tribalism is that one always thinks their side is better and the other side worse, and that comparisons between the two sides (or even equal application of standards to each) is deeply unfair and offensive ("moral relativism"). Tribalism is a powerful human drive, which is why even those who are aware of its intoxicating effects and even consciously try to avoid it -- all of us -- nonetheless sometimes succumb to its temptations.

Yet it is equally true that Christians have massacred innocents before, and they have interpreted scripture to justify among other things, terror, slavery, and the subjugation of women. Although I wasn't living during that time, I can only imagine that the remarks made by Newt Gingrich might have cause someone to be hung and burned. That's scary! Even scarier is the fact that jihadis may be recruited because they see Muslim's attacked and the Islam religion insulted. If anyone should be stopped, it's Newt Gingrich. He could never be my President!